Loving watching you two nerd out on NZ political history!

I love this programme. This shows the true value of journalism. The knowledge of Corrin and Guyon is a national treasure. I never cease to be amazed at their recall. Thanks guys.

Public Utilities should have NEVER been sold off. Now look at much we pay for electricity, water, gas etc all now fully or partially privatized and only are interested in dividends for their shareholders.
And the other big issue is none of these now privatized companies have reinvested in our crumbling infrastructure which now in conservative figures will cost us $400-800 billion. Crime of the century. Look at the debacle over NZRail, Tranz rail, kiwirail and replacement of cook straight ferries now by Nicky no boats.

Pisses me off how these so-and-sos fleeced us and this current lot are the same wolves in different wool.

Imagine where we would be today if we had never sold our public stake in our railways (and have the expense of buying it back), energy supply or let Australia take over our banks. I also wonder how much cheaper our roading infrastructure would be to construct if we had kept the Ministry of Works operating, back then we led the world in small bridge design and built things based on best practice rather than using the cheapest tender.  Bad decisions in the past have negatively impacted both households and businesses, with banks making huge profits at our expense, power companies operating for profit before service and a poorly functioning passenger rail system that makes us seem 3rd world compared to Europe (bring back the Southerner!).

A strong public sector is not a bad thing, ours is actually much smaller than many countries at around 18% of the total workforce, it is 35% for Finland and it is not seen as a failing economy and it does not have the same extremes of poverty that we have.

A really insightful chat! Thanks both… but that 38,000 figure for the post office-for context…the post office was not only delivering and sorting mail, they were involved with banking back in the day right? Telegrams were still a thing? and phone operators? It was a pretty big all encompassing, terrifyingly manual  organization

NZ selling our stuff to the lowest bidder since 1987, for no sensible reason, and no benefit to Kiwis.

While I'd love to have a ministry of works come back, modern day bureaucrats would absolutely stuff it up just like everything else they manage. Sad but true.

Just want to share some feedback to help your case for another season: This is one of the few podcasts I look forward to each week. As someone >30yr this context and format on nz political topics is extremely helpful and informative. If possible, give them more funding/ resources for this series. I’m sure the team can think of ways to utilise it.

I hope you both will be still doing this show for a while, even if it’s just to document/ banter about nz political history.

New Zealand needs a decent working class Union strongman to step up to this gaping hole in its political landscape.

Love the history and content of this thanks you two. I've watched twice. Must go through the rest.

People often forget that New Zealand is 'in the middle of nowhere'.
To get certain industries to grow the government was the only 'business who had the money and influence to get industry started and growing. e.g. Tourism. Plenty of other good looking, affordable countries people can visit - hence the tourist Hotel Corporation, THC.
Tourism brought different people, food, culture, language to this country.

We just need to look at America to see the effects of that. The population can't even afford healthcare affort to pay for while the CEOs and shareholders make massive profits. Then look at Australian toll roads that are privately controlled by Transurban, an Australian, multinational road operations company and one of the world's largest toll road operators.

Great listen! onward to season two chaps

South Canterbury Finance only bailed out because investors (deposit holders) were National voters. Total joke.

Thanks to you both, grateful you raise this topic.
Asset sales is more about big corporate takeover than benefit to everyday New Zealanders. Look at the profits being made and bled out of our once great independent nation since. Most assets now predominately foreign owned (eg Aussie re Postbank, ASB, BNZ). Was said to enable better public healthcare and education. So why today, do our doctors nurses and teachers have to go on strike to fight for better staffing and health /education infrastructure? Oh how I wish Norm Kirk had lived to go on to win the 1975 election. Arguably we would be better off now than Aussie, and their health and education professionals would be trying to migrate here. Meanwhile our OECD rankings continue to slip in most categories.

It'd be a BLOODY DISASTER to sell Kiwibank.  How dare theY?

These assets have been grown using taxpayers money..

Thanks that was enjoyable n a fun format to look back at past decisions to see how we got to where we r now. Look forward to next series🙂👍

You two is whom the government need to be referring to I feel, I love the background and the updates! Brilliant!